Green
by Zilchtastic
Summary: It all started with a clump of grass and a strange package. It kind of snowballed from there.
1. Chapter 1

The patch of grass was less than a foot across, just a shy clump of green poking up next to an outcropping of rock.

"What's it even _doing_ here?" Reno said, bending low to examine it so that the bright tail of his hair almost brushed the pale green leaves. "I didn't think anything'd be able to grow out here for the next, like, million years."

"Flowers grew," Rude pointed out, "back at the church."

"That's different." Reno pursed his lips, looking uncommonly thoughtful for a moment. "That was 'cause of, well, _her_." He squinted at the clump of grass. "It's almost a little creepy," he added, after a moment.

"I'm more concerned with how you spotted one clump of grass from more than a hundred yards away," Rude said.

Reno turned his head and tossed his partner a cocky grin. "Hey, the ladies like a man with skills."

"How does that even make--"

Reno's PHS shrilled abruptly, cutting Rude off. "Yeah-hey."

"Reno." Tseng, as expected. The man had timing. "Are you in the city yet?"

"Just outside it," Reno said, mouthing _Tseng_ at Rude, as if Rude couldn't guess for himself. "Give us five minutes and we'll be at your door."

"Change in plans," said Tseng, and Reno could just picture him standing by a desk, eyes on the horizon his swanky new office windows revealed. "Swing by the Seventh Heaven first. I hear Cloud has something for you." The connection went dead. Tseng never was the type for heartfelt good-byes.

Reno rolled his eyes and slipped the PHS back into his pocket. "New plans," he said. "Looks like we're stopping by Tifa's place. You still got that bet going with Elena?"

"That Tifa will poison your drink one of these days? Of course."

Reno grinned, crooked, and snapped his goggles down over his eyes. "Any way I can get in on that?"

"You're a sick bastard, Reno."

Reno kicked his bike back into gear; the engine snarled like a Kalm Fang, and the exhaust pipes spit up a cloud of smoke and dust. "Let's get going. I could use a drink."

They took off in the direction of Edge, but not before Reno could cast a last, puzzled look back at the clump of grass. It waved them away, stalks rustling brightly in the wind.

Cloud was sitting outside on the sidewalk when they pulled up to the bar, a spot of pale color standing out from the perpetual grey of everything else in Edge.

"Hey," said Reno, smirking like he was about to tell a joke. "What's up, pal-o-mine?"

Cloud just gave him a look, not even strong enough to be called a glare. It was more like weak disgust, and Reno was pretty used to it by now. He got it all the time.

"Here," Cloud said, shoving a package at them. It was wrapped in plain brown paper circled with twine, and said only 'RENO' across the front in red-stamped letters.

Reno took the package, then shook it. Something rattled inside. "I'm touched, Cloud. How'd you know it was my birthday?"

Cloud actually rolled his eyes. "It's not from me. No return address, so I don't know who sent it. We found it on the doorstep two days ago and it was Tifa's idea to call ShinRa."

"Good of her," Rude murmured, low.

Cloud's expression didn't change. "You're lucky she got it first. Barrett wanted to hold it for ransom."

Reno looked over at Rude. "What do you think, partner?"

"Probably not a bomb," Rude said. "Would've gone off when you shook it."

"Why send it through Strife, though? My apartment ain't in the phone book, but there's still ways. Coulda sent it to ShinRa."

Rude shrugged. "Something they don't want the package inspectors to see?"

Reno turned back to Cloud, who only shook his head. "Don't ask me. I'm just the delivery boy."

A sigh. "Well, can't stand not knowing, so maybe we should open it." Reno nodded to Cloud. "If it's something good, I'll buy you a drink."

"And if it's something bad?"

"You can blow me to make up for it."

Cloud did glare, now, but instead of a witty retort he just said, "Is it really your birthday?"

Reno shrugged, artlessly casual. "Hell if I know. Very well could be." The bike roared back to life and then he was pulling away, speeding off down the narrow street.

Rude gave Cloud a little nod and then turned his bike to follow after.

Cloud went back inside. Tifa was rinsing out glasses back behind the bar. He watched her wrinkle her nose in disgust as she poured out a soup of old beer and cigarette butts.

"They took the package?" she said, as Cloud pulled up a stool.

Cloud nodded. "Reno said it was his birthday."

"Really?" Tifa pushed a wet rag in his direction and Cloud took it, obediently, and started wiping down the counter. "Was it?"

"I don't think he actually knows."

Tifa made another nose-wrinkling face. "That's... kind of sad."

"Yeah."

"Maybe I won't poison his drinks, after all."

They pulled over in an alleyway a few blocks from the sleek new ShinRa headquarters.

"We could just open it when we get there," Rude pointed out, reasonably.

"Nah," said Reno, already pulling at the twine. "I wanna know what it is they wanted me to see before anyone else did."

He flicked out a knife from up his sleeve and sliced at the twine with quick, neat motions. Rude frowned at him, eyes on the package.

"If I said I had a weird feeling about this--"

"Could just be a box full of porno," Reno said. He grinned distractedly as he pulled the paper back. "I _hope_ it's a box full of porno. I dated a porn star once, you know. Maybe she remembered my birthday."

"_You_ don't even remember your birthday."

"Yeah, well, doesn't mean I've never made one up before." Underneath the paper the box was just plain cardboard, closed with tape. Reno cut through that, too. "'Course, I've forgotten all the days I've said my birthday was on. Too hard to keep track. I never did get that chocobo I wanted any--" He broke off suddenly, expression going blank as he peered into the box.

"What?" Rude craned his neck, trying to see. "What is it?"

Reno reached into the box and pulled it out.

"Oh," said Rude. And then: "_Fuck._"

It was a hand. The skin was mottled grey and the joints were stiff. Bone peeked out, yellow-white, down where the join of the wrist had been. There was something scrawled on the palm when Reno turned it over, in faded black marker: _SOON._

Reno had gone so white that his tattoos stood out like bright, bloody slashes on his cheeks. He shoved the hand back into the box and set it atop the nearest dumpster. He was blinking too fast.

"You okay, partner?" Rude said, concerned.

Reno looked up. He was still pale. "This is the worst birthday _ever_," he said.

The brand new ShinRa Building wasn't open to the public yet. The builders were still working on the elevators, and the masons hadn't quite finished the stylish new fountain out front. The reception area was still blank and bare-walled and un-carpeted, and their footsteps echoed loudly as they made their way back to the emergency stairs.

Compared to the _old_ ShinRa building, this place looked like a goddamned lean-to, Reno thought. It was just an office building-- sleek, clean-lined, as modern as could be, but an office building nevertheless. It only had fourteen floors. And the security system was absolutely laughable.

"I still think we should have death rays," Reno was saying, as they climbed resolutely up to Level Twelve. "I bet Reeve's place has death rays."

"We can't have death rays," Rude said, with an air of strained patience. "Bad for PR."

"PR, shmee-are. When a bunch of terrorists bust through the front doors, you are gonna want those death rays, man."

Rude rolled his eyes behind the glasses. "Because the arsenal helped _so_ much the first time."

"Four words: Not Enough Death Rays."

They made it to the level twelve landing and stood there for a minute, puffing air.

"You're outta shape, partner," Reno said, even though he himself was leaning on the handrail and wheezing.

"You're avoiding the issue," Rude said.

Reno's expression hardened. "I don't wanna tell Tseng. Keep it to yourself, okay?"

"If it's a threat to the company--"

"Then they'd have _sent_ it to the company, yo. They sent it to me. Stamped my fucking name on it and everything." Reno chewed his lower lip for a second. "I don't need to drag the boss into it if it's just some ex trying to be cute."

"Severed hands are your idea of 'cute'? Really?"

"Still. For now, it's my problem. If it looks like somethin' else, I'll tell the boss myself."

Rude stared, hard.

"Promise!" Reno held up his hands in the I-give-in gesture. "You want me to pinky-swear or what?"

Rude made a snorting sound. "Fine. But if I think for even a isecond/i that you're trying to play hero--"

"As if," Reno said, and the cocky grin was back. "You an' me both, we're the villains in this picture."

Level Twelve was the floor for the Department of Administrative Research, which the elegant gold plaque next to the door advertised in large, bold capitals. Reno was faintly surprised no one had renamed the department-- sure, it was a cute euphemism, but was there anyone who didn't already know it spelled _TURKS_? Another sign just beneath the first killed some of the swanky ambience-- it read "THIS IS A WEAPONS-FREE ZONE" in big red-on-white letters. It was, of course, a complete and total lie. They just hid the weapons a little better now, these days.

The secretary's desk sat heavy against the wall as soon as you opened the door-- in full view of the back stairs and the front elevator. Security cameras perched in every corner, black and modern and not yet functioning.

There was carpeting here, soft golden brown, warm and inviting when you paired it with the cream-colored walls. It was scotch-guarded, of course, in case of blood. Across from the secretary station sat four wide chairs, spaced far apart, two on either side of the path to the elevator. They still had the factory-shipped plastic covers over them.

"I hate this room," Reno murmured as they passed the waiting area, making their way over to the wide double-doors at the other end. "Were they _trying_ to make it look like a dentist's office?"

"Not as scary as a dentist's office," Rude said.

"Maybe that's the problem, then."

Reno kicked at one of the doors-- it was a little too low, and it scraped across the plush carpeting as it pushed open. "Yo, Boss. You miss us?"

Tseng's office was a little better than the reception area, if only because it wasn't trying to be cozy. The carpeting was the same brown color, but the track lighting was low and hid the corners in shadow. Tseng's desk was plain dark wood, heavy and stark-looking, void of clutter. There were two floor-to-ceiling windows on either side behind the desk; at the moment the shades were drawn, leaving the room dark and almost unsettling.

Reno liked it.

"I trust your errand went well?" Tseng said, without looking up. He wasn't exactly lounging at his desk-- his posture was as straight as ever-- but he had his chin in his hand and his eyes were almost half-mast, and that was downright indolent by Tseng-standards.

"Super," Reno said. "Cloud says hi."

"Does he?"

"No. Like he ever says hi to anyone."

Tseng made a noise, agreement or boredom perhaps. Maybe both. He shuffled the papers under his hand. "What did you find out in Kalm?"

"Nothing we didn't already know." Reno sprawled out in one of Tseng's leather chairs, hooking sideways to dangle his legs over the plush arm. "Reeve and his people are out there building wind turbines and solar panels and shit, and we're getting left in the dust." He picked at one of his fingernails. "Can't we just kill him or something?"

Tseng's mouth twisted up in what wasn't a smile. "Unfortunately, no. Bad for PR."

Reno sagged, kicking his feet. "Goddamn PR. I really hate that fucking word."

Tseng turned to Rude. "Anything to add?"

Rude looked thoughtful for a moment. "They really are beating us at the public opinion game," he said. "Their building projects are all way ahead of ours, and most of it's on public land."

"Meaning we can't even charge them for lease," Reno said, disgustedly.

"We're working on a few buy-outs," Tseng murmured, frowning down at his papers. "There's land to the south that the WRO have been eyeing, and the President has a mind to acquire it. We're reasonably sure that they can't top our offer at the moment, but--"

"All this corporate shit makes my head hurt," Reno moaned. "It was so much easier when we could just stab people in the back."

"This _is_ backstabbing," said a voice from the door, and then Rufus was sauntering in like a white light in the darkness. "It's just a more subtle form, Reno."

Reno perked up as the President made his way over. "Hey, Boss. Lookin' good."

Rude sighed, resigned.

Rufus only smiled, but it was the kind of smile that promised retribution later. He passed Reno in a swish of fabric and made his way over to lean on Tseng's desk. "What's our status?"

"Still waiting," Tseng said, spine going even straighter than before. "Shall I tell our party to increase the offer, Sir?"

"Hold off for now," Rufus said, tossing hair back from his eyes with a shake of his head. "We don't want to look desperate."

"About the office--" Reno started.

"I don't want to hear any more about death rays," Rufus said, with a note of finality.

Reno sagged again.

"Sir," said Rude, all professionalism. "The situation in Kalm is just as you predicted. There wasn't much for us to do there."

Rufus nodded. "Reno? Anything to add?"

Reno yawned and stretched. The leather underneath him creaked warmly. "Cloud owes me a blowjob," he said.

No one looked even slightly surprised. "Why?" Rufus asked, tone idly curious.

"'S'my birthday," Reno said, almost defiantly.

"Wasn't it your birthday two months ago?" Tseng asked.

"And then again two weeks after that," Rufus added.

"I'm trying to cover all the bases. Wouldn't want to miss it by accident," Reno replied, matter-of-fact.

"Happy birthday," said Tseng, as he turned his attention back to his papers. "Now get out of my office before you ruin the upholstery."

Reno looked thoughtful and annoyed as they left the nouveau ShinRa building. The bikes stayed in the parking garage; they were hoofing it from here.

"Still thinking about the hand?" Rude said, sympathetic.

"What? No. I'm thinking about how I'm gonna get Cloud to actually suck my dick," Reno said, with a level of sincerity that had to be genuine. "But now that you mention it, I should probably think about the hand."

Rude fought the urge to rub the bridge of his nose. "Probably, yeah."

Reno frowned and shoved his hands into his pockets as they walked. "Whose hand d'you suppose it was? I'm sure I don't know nobody with missing hands."

"Could be anyone. It's not like they sent a pinky and a ransom note."

"It wasn't all rotted yet," Reno went on, as if he hadn't heard, "so it had to be pretty fresh. Didn't come offa no cemetary stiff they just dug up or whatever."

They were turning down a side street, making their way toward the center of town. Rude could see the blocked-off area of the square up ahead where the old monument had been. A crane perched near it, along with a couple of cement trucks, but there didn't seem to be a whole lot of actual iconstruction/i going on. That seemed to be the way construction projects always went, Rude mused.

"'Soon'," said Reno, disrupting his reverie. "What's 'soon'? _Soon_ you'll be getting another hand? _Soon_ we'll be coming to get you? _Soon_ will be our extravaganza of low, low prices?"

"That would be one hell of an ad campaign," said Rude, not really listening.

Reno sighed. "I need caffeine and Wutai takeout, in that order. Let's go to Shen's."

Rude made a face. "All that MSG is bad for you."

"Right, because my arteries, those are what I worry about on a daily basis. Not the bullets or the monsters or the Sephiroth clones or anything."

Rude sighed. "Whatever. You buy." Reno opened his mouth. "Don't even give me any more shit about your birthday," Rude added, firmly.

"Can't blame a guy for trying," came the reply.


	2. Chapter 2

"Number Two with rice," Reno said, without preamble, as soon as they walked up to the restaurant counter. The girl behind the register gave him a wary look-- either because Reno had "employee of ShinRa" written all over him or because she just knew trouble when she saw it-- but she dutifully punched the buttons to ring up the order. "Make that two number Twos," Reno added after a second, "and a side of eggrolls. And the soup. Wait, no, scratch the soup, gimme the noodles instead. And an order of extra sauce." He glanced over at Rude. "You want anything?"

Rude sighed and then ordered a combo platter, since it was his partner's dime anyway.

They collected drinks-- tea for Rude, something ginormous and fizzy and loaded with caffeine for Reno-- and slid over to one of the booths near the back, out of sight but with a good view of the door.

"So, about that decomposing severed hand--" Reno started.

Rude held up a hand. "After the food."

"C'mon, you serious? Goin' soft on me, partner? I've seen you go out for barbecue after beating a man's head in with his own severed arm."

"It wasn't a severed _decomposing_ arm," Rude pointed out.

"Point, and it didn't smell as bad, but it was a hell of a lot messier. Had to burn that shirt I was wearing, remember? By the way, you still owe me twenty gil for that shirt."

"If that shirt cost you twenty gil then some homeless guy obviously ripped you off," Rude snorted.

"I liked that shirt, yo."

"It only had three buttons."

"Exactly! Meant nobody could whine at me to do up the rest of 'em."

Rude had to fight the urge to put his head in his hands. Luckily the food came just then, and even if having his mouth full didn't shut Reno up (usually), it did cut down on some of the banter.

"Where's your appetite today?" Reno mumbled as he casually thieved a chunk of meat from Rude's plate, chopsticks held at a surprisingly delicate angle.

"Severed hand," Rude reminded him.

"You _are_ goin' soft," Reno said, wonderingly. "What, gonna be rescuing kittens next? Helpin' old grannies across the street? Workin' for Reeve?"

Rude picked at his rice. "You're not even a little bit worried about getting a package with a hand and an ominous warning in it?"

Reno sneered and waved his chopsticks, splattering brown sauce all over the table. "What's to worry about? So I got a hand. I'll mount it over the fireplace. Jeez, partner, we'll figure this out."

Rude stared at him, hard. "You're enjoying this."

"Damn right, this place has the best shrimp noodles in--"

"Not the food. The situation." Rude's eyebrows dipped down. "You're bored," he said at last, almost accusingly.

Reno grinned, but there was something hard in it, bitter. "'Course I'm bored. I'm totally fucking bored. Look at us, yo! We're sitting in a fucking Wutai diner, scaring the crap out of the waitress because she thinks we _might_ skip out on the bill. We spy on people to see what kind of_ windmills_ they're up to." He spread his hands. "Nobody has tried to shoot us or Bolt-3 us or blow us up in _months_."

"I think only you could take that as a personal insult."

Reno snarled and pointed his chopsticks in accusation. "You sayin' you're not bored?"

Rude let out a heavy breath. He glanced around the eatery where absolutely no one was staring at them in abject fear. An old couple a few tables away were giving them dirty looks, but only because Reno was losing more food to the floor than he was to his mouth.

"I'm bored," he admitted, finally.

"And there you have it." Reno folded his arms, looking smug, like he'd just won some kind of point. "So, what could possibly be better than a nice, severed hand to give us something to do?"

Rude speared a bamboo shoot and rolled his eyes behind the glasses. "A severed head?"

"Now you're talkin'," Reno said, and he dug back into his food with gusto.

--------------------------------------

It turned out that a severed head had actually been aiming their hopes too _low_.

"Whoa," said Reno, looking a little green, as they stood in the open doorway of his apartment. "_Damn_."

The body had been nailed to the wall, spread-eagled, and obviously positioned to be the first thing anybody saw as soon as the door was opened. It was wearing a very nice suit, dark and conservative and a little too familiar-looking for comfort. Also, it was missing a few... parts.

"No head," Reno said, matter-of-factly, even though he was still parchment-white.

"No hand, either," Rude said. "Looks like we found our donor."

They moved farther into the room. About halfway across the smell hit them-- rotted-sweet and bowel-like and a little coppery. Reno winced. "That is pretty rank."

Rude ignored him. "Hardly any blood. Somebody took the parts off after he was already dead."

"Yeah, thanks, I went to Deductive Reasoning School too, partner." Reno slid closer and looked up at the corpse. "What, did they save the head for later? Figure it'd add more oomph if I got it in the mail tomorrow?"

"Think we'd better sweep the rest of the apartment," Rude said, nodding at the bedroom door.

Reno slid his EMR out of one loose sleeve, flicking it open like a switchblade. "You take that one, I got the bathroom."

Rude raised his eyebrows.

"Look, shut up. I gotta hurl, okay?"

"Going soft, partner?" Rude's lips twitched upward in what counted, for him, as a smirk.

"Har, har. I'm kicking you in the nuts when I get back." Reno hurried off. "Scream if anybody jumps out and tries to kill you."

The bedroom wasn't filled with assassins, but it did clear up one mystery. Rude leaned out the door.

"Found your head," he called, over the sound of retching down the hall. "Also, think you need new bedsheets."

The retching just got louder.

--------------------------------------------------

"Okay, so." Reno poked at the head with a wooden spoon. "Obviously, that's a note folded up in his mouth. Grab it for me."

"Grab it yourself." Rude elbowed him sharply. "And quit poking him in the eye. You're going to make it leak all over the place."

Reno went green again and mercifully stopped poking the head. "This is so fucked up," he said.

"Why? We see this kind of thing all the time. Used to," Rude amended, after a moment.

"Yeah, but not in my house. We see corpses, we make corpses, but we don't string 'em up to drip all over my damn carpet."

"You're upset about your carpet."

"It's nice carpet. Your toes sink into it when you're barefoot." Reno shook his head and waved his hands. "This isn't about the carpet! How the fuck did someone get in here, past the security codes, dragging a dead body?"

"Security tapes?" Rude suggested.

"No dice. Disabled all the cameras last time Elena used 'em to blackmail me."

Rude snickered. "Sure she didn't plant any others?"

"Only the one in the shower. I pretended not to find it. Be a shame if she never got to see my wet, naked--"

Rude threw his best Shut Up, Reno glare. For once, it worked.

"Get Elena on the phone and see if there's any others you missed." He glanced at the head. "And get me the salad tongs."

------------------------------------------

"I don't know what he's talking about," Elena said the moment Rude grabbed the PHS from Reno.

"Right, fine, I believe you. Check the tapes anyway."

"Seriously, Rude, I wouldn't--"

"_Elena_."

Elena let out a huffy sigh. "Fine. What's this all about, anyway?"

"Dead body," Reno said, snatching the phone away. "Wanna know how it got here."

"Reno," Elena said, in her best mock-motherly tone of chiding, "did you bring home a prostitute and forget to feed it again?"

"I nail a lot of people," Reno said, grinning like a loon, "but generally not to my _wall_."

Elena made a choking sound. "Right. Ugh. I'll see what I can dig up." The call disconnected without a good-bye.

Reno shook his head. "These rookies, just don't have the stomach, y'know?"

"She's not a rookie," Rude said, "and you were the one heaving-to ten minutes ago."

Reno glared. "Must've been the Wutaian. Bad egg roll."

"Right."

Reno sighed wearily and sank back down into one of his kitchen chairs. "Anyway. What's the note say?"

Rude unfolded the neat square of yellow paper and slid it across the table. In bold black letters it read VERY SOON.

"Great, amazing." Reno threw up his hands in clear disgust. "That is so friggin' helpful I could puke."

"Again?"

Reno ignored him. "'VERY SOON' what? Couldn't they at least have made it some kinda threat?"

"Think the body was supposed to convey that part."

"Thank you, master of psychology. I never would have guessed that a dismembered human being stapled to my wallpaper was supposed to represent a threat to my person." His PHS rang and he flipped it open with an angry motion. "What?"

"It's me," Elena said, voice low. "I think you guys better get down here and see this."

-----------------------------------------------

As soon as they made it to Elena's small-but-comfortable apartment they were ushered inside by tugging hands.

"What, no beer?" Reno complained, straightening his suit in a way that didn't actually make it any straighter. "Where's your sense of hospitality, Elena?"

"Just get in here," she hissed, shutting the door and flipping all the locks, even the ancient chain-locks that only worked if your apartment was being attacked by ten-year-old girls. Inside it was dark-- all the lights had been turned down low. The kitchen was illuminated only by the pale fluorescent glow of the light above the sink.

"What's up?" Rude asked, shoulders squaring, eyes scanning for a threat.

"Not sure," Elena said, "but if they can get into your apartment they can get into mine. I'm hoping nobody followed you here."

"We doubled back twice," Reno said, "and then once more for good measure. I'm not a freakin' newbie here, Elena."

She snorted and motioned for them to follow her down the hall. "No, just out of practice. You're getting soft, Reno."

Reno threw his hands up. "Why do people keep saying that? Do I gotta go burn down an orphanage or something just to shut you two up?"

"Doesn't count if you rescue the orphans, first," Rude murmured.

"Don't even start, partner. I wasn't the only one with my arms full of little kid."

Elena gave him a good whack to the stomach as she brushed past. "Are we finished talking, here? I said I had something to show you."

They followed her into a darkened bedroom alive with the hum of computers. Wires and cords snaked over the walls, pinned and taped up to keep from tangling or tripping anyone. A huge desk dominated nearly half the room; three flat monitors and two keyboards took up most of the space, along with a collection of small tools and what looked like the pieces of an ancient motherboard.

"Romantic," Reno said, dry. "No wonder Tseng always takes you back to his place."

It was impossible to tell if Elena blushed in the dark, but her glare was clearly visible thanks to the pale blue wash from the screens. "Do you want to see this or not?"

They settled in a hunched ring around the desk, and Elena typed in a quick command, fingers delicate on the keys. The middle monitor came alive; Reno's apartment was grainy but easily recognizable in the paused video. He frowned at the screen.

"Is that above the doorframe? I checked above the doorframe!"

"You checked last month," Elena muttered, _sotto voce_.

"You broke into my apartment just to set up spy cameras in my kitchen? I mean, don't get me wrong, I understand the bathroom, I'd want to watch me jerk off in the shower too, if I were you, but the kitchen? I don't jerk off in the--"

Elena hissed and reached over to give him a smack. "Does it matter? Watch."

For a good sixty seconds absolutely nothing happened, and Reno started to shift impatiently from foot to foot, but then movement flickered at the extreme lower edge of the screen.

"Holy shit," Reno said, as the figures stepped into full view. "Holy shit!"

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End file.
